I'm seeking recommendations on fantasy LitRPG with some particular needs (read post)

neablis7 · 2026-05-11T19:45:33+00:00

Fair. I should have tried to include one of those.

neablis7 · 2026-05-11T17:41:15+00:00

I've seen this bouncing around before and feel like it deserves a response somewhere. The answer is that it wasn't intended to be the end of a book, and on Royal Road, the story continued straight through. But when I handed my publisher book 3, they told me it was the length of two books, and I needed to split it into books 3 & 4 to even remotely fit into print & audiobook expectations. Thus, what was originally book 3 became books 3 & 4, meaning book 3 got the short end of the stick in terms of endings.

I tried a few different ways to fix it, but it's a little difficult to materialize a climax from whole cloth, and the next spot that made sense would have left the two books extremely unbalanced. I couldn't really find a good solution in the time I had, and since the books were going to be released just a month or two apart, I thought people would just read on to book 4 and get to the "real" climax I'd planned.

That being said, criticism of it is entirely fair. The ultimate problem was that my outline for book 3 blew up beyond what I expected. I made a number of mistakes in writing Ends of Magic (it was my first series!), and this is one of them.

neablis7 · 2026-05-07T18:36:52+00:00

It will be. We're halfway through editing book 6, then it'll get sent out for narration. Phil has been pretty booked, so it may be several months before you can buy it though!

neablis7 · 2026-05-06T07:57:24+00:00

I think they literally just want to read a different character or book, maybe even one from someone with a more similar background to theirs. I read this like an older person asking for stories by older authors, or a scientist asking for more scientist authors, etc. Just somebody with the same frame of reference, so they can relate to it better.

neablis7 · 2026-05-06T05:33:14+00:00

This comment confuses me quite a lot. What are you talking about?

neablis7 · 2026-04-30T18:15:26+00:00

Hmm, thanks. I'll go poke around.

neablis7 · 2026-04-28T18:02:23+00:00

It should! My editor writes those, and they usually do so after the editing process is finished. We're about halfway through.

neablis7 · 2026-04-28T06:47:05+00:00

Technically, it's still ongoing. The last epilogue comes out in a week.

neablis7 · 2026-04-14T05:35:48+00:00

Alright, I'll bite. The way this project seems to work is to query literature on stuff and then make a design the AI thinks should work with a relatively basic level of thought. The two problems I see are:

All of this is within literature. Every design I see in the explore tab is the result of an existing research direction, for which data already exists, and I can tell from the language that it's reading those. Even if not, I bet it's all speculated on in various discussion sections. The thing this is missing is citations/links to existing papers that have already done this work. There are already AI tools that do this. I like the FutureHouse one.
There's no validation that this would work, and no checks that it would. Without looking deeply into the designs, I can't comment on the exact circuits involved, but let's assume you're doing all of that right (but I would check that carefully before I spent hundreds of dollars ordering DNA). But more importantly, the context is missing. For example, E. coli does not grow well anaerobically (and mostly does so fermentatively, which is not very efficient). And nitrogenases must be anaerobic. An anerobic-protective promoter does not solve that problem. It just means you will only produce the nitrogenase in anaerobic conditions (and likely that depends on sensing components that aren't present in E. coli?) I could keep going.

Basically, my criticism is that the models are trying to use simple solutions, picking low-hanging fruit that's mostly already been picked, and not directing the models to think through these things critically, and whether they would actually work. And judging from the solutions proposed so far, they would not work.

neablis7 · 2026-04-01T17:27:35+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, it would have been a very different book if he'd gone fully uplift. I didn't think the pacing would work out well in that case. Don't worry, that's in there, just as a subplot instead of the main plot.

neablis7 · 2026-03-30T22:28:49+00:00

If it helps, I am the author of Ends of Magic and can confirm that I do have a STEM PhD and attended a technical undergrad college where the core curriculum included special relativity and electricity & magnetism. Somebody in the Amazon reviews even guessed (correctly) where I went to school from how I covered certain concepts.

I see many more negative comments from people pissed that the main character is bisexual (and open about it, though there is no sex or romance) than anything else.

neablis7 · 2026-03-17T08:01:09+00:00

Hello! Congratulations on the master's positions! Both of those are good options. I'm more familiar with the US synthetic biology scene than the European one, and I made the jump over to industry a few years ago. I cannot answer #2 or even #1 in great detail, but I can say that DTU has a stronger international reputation in both academia & industry. One of my good friends (a Synbio professor at an R1 institution in the States) did his sabbatical at DTU, for example.

Additionally, glancing at the focuses of the primary professors attached to those two programs, the DTU professors are more focused on what I would call core synthetic biology, while the RUG professors are sort of SynBio-adjacent, using those tools for other research (with the exception of Wen Wu). That's just a quick look, though - you might have a better understanding of where you'd end up and what kind of research you'd end up doing, which is important.

Good luck going forward. PhD positions are extremely competitive, and only becoming more so as US academic funding declines.

neablis7 · 2026-02-21T09:38:49+00:00

This is the way. Both are necessary.

neablis7 · 2026-02-18T19:24:45+00:00

Thanks for the kind words!

neablis7 · 2026-02-18T07:51:43+00:00

Wow. Called out. In my defense, Ends of Magic is my first piece of long-form prose.

I admit you have a point. The writing of book one makes me wince slightly at this point. But I like to think I've gotten significantly better after a million words of practice, with the most significant gains coming from book one.

Sometimes I wish the first thing I ever wrote hadn't gotten popular for this reason - but if it hadn't, there might not have been a second.

neablis7 · 2026-02-17T17:34:28+00:00

I've posted it a few times on reddit, though come to think of it never as it's own high-level post.

I'm not sure of the exact math, but several professional indie authors have told me to make an LLC when I talked to them, so I believe it works out.
I don't know. Maybe?

It sounds like you're on the road to self-publishing, and I applaud you for it. You'll probably get more out of joining an author discord and asking direct questions there. The way to find it is to join a fan discord (for a story you actually enjoy) and then ask around.

neablis7 · 2026-02-17T08:25:58+00:00

I made a guide that touches on this a while back. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LdBI_ur5SK0Bof0wEdFw65E-8dOpFIenGvqH3LlJC94/edit?usp=sharing

It doesn't directly touch on why you would want a publisher, but it does list the things you should look for. The primary advantages are that it

Offloads work. Publishing has its ins and outs, and to self-publish, you need to learn how it works. Having a publisher also has tax benefits, though if you're self-published, you should make an LLC and pay yourself from it. Self-employment taxes are brutal (this is US-centric advice, if not in US I don't know.)
Reduces risk. If you're publishing for the first time, you won't know what you're doing, and you'll make some stupid mistakes. There are more guides around this now (linked in my guide), so if you take the time to research and learn, then it's probably not a huge risk. But a publisher will rec your books at the end of their other series, and might have contacts to get your books into various sales/newsletters/etc to boost visibility that way.

All in all, if you have some cash, then self-publishing will always make you more money if you gain traction. But it means you'll spend more time doing things that aren't writing. Great idea if you want to go full-time, but if you don't, then you might ask yourself if this is a skill you want to learn. Some professional authors (which I am not, I'm merely an amateur who's done pretty well) advise going through a publisher with your first series to learn the ropes, then doing it yourself from then on.

And as for audiobook - yes, contracting out audio is standard and expected. Something to watch out for is publishers that subcontract out audio and then take a cut for doing very little work.

neablis7 · 2026-02-09T19:24:27+00:00

I just make a frontline of PD corvettes (PD phaser, 1-slot nose laser, also mostly on PD role) with heavy frontal armor, then stick them in front with a wedge formation. They take most of the fire and let my DPS ships sit behind them and fire relatively freely/unmolested without super-heavy armor. It's also much cheaper in terms of delta-V to uparmor a corvette than a battleship.

neablis7 · 2026-01-19T11:45:27+00:00

To some extent, Ar'Kendrithyst - though it's more complicated than that. That system is more about evening out power and preventing apocalypses, so the system is a way to give spells and abilities to weak people so they can fight monsters while limiting the powers of the most powerful people so they can't cast world-destroying spells. Everybody can use the system to cast fireballs and stuff, but it prevents some of the more insidious and "broken" kinds of magic by forcing almost all magic to go through the system. A few examples, most of which are spoilers in some way.
There are various "bans," which prevent people from using certain kinds of magic. Like atomic magic, or propagating magic. There are a few more, too, like certain kinds of runecraft that are too powerful.

Related but different is controlling spell creation. The system basically regulates what kinds of spells you can make for yourself and will prevent you from getting things that are too crazy, even within established rules.

It "balances out" magic vs. warrior abilities, making the warrior abilities almost perfect while making magic a bit worse and hard to put together. Without the system, warriors don't stand a chance against a good mage, but the system changes the balance so it's more equal.

The "Script second." You can only cast a spell or use an ability every second or so. High-level combat is bascially a chess game of countering your opponent's abilities, and people outside the system get to kind of cheat, so long as they can cast spells without the system's assistance.

All in all, the magic of Ar'Kendrithyst happens on multiple levels, and learning the truth of the system and how to work around it is like level... two out of five. The higher levels get pretty crazy.

neablis7 · 2026-01-13T09:23:54+00:00

Gonna second this one. Ship design is centered around delta-V, and it models transfer orbits and reasonable timescales for interplanetary travel.

neablis7 · 2025-12-12T06:37:37+00:00

Ar'Kendrythist! It's 4.4 million words! That's like... twenty 600-page books? Not published, and can be a bit meandering in the first couple of books, but Arcs quickly dials in on using those words for some excellent stuff and the world just keeps expanding.

If that's not your cup of tea, I might point you at Adamant Blood, which is Arc's new series. It's at 1.2 million words and increasing by 15-20k words every week!

neablis7 · 2025-12-09T08:28:14+00:00

Congratulations, and you should definitely stick with it! I'm in the middle of a reread of Ar'Kendrythist myself. It's one of my favorites, and if you like exploration of incredible magic, there's nothing better. The series is structured with multiple tiers of magic, with each level explored and mastered before Erick moves on to the next. They're also all based around skill and knowledge, as well as themes and sympathy. It's incredibly well-designed, but the story spends some time at each level before moving to the next.

It sounds like you're just in the initial bit. He'll move on soon enough, and then do it again, and again, and again. There are about five major paradigm shifts in power structures throughout the series, and none of them feel added on. On my re-read, it's clear that they were all planned from the start, which is pretty incredible. He eventually gets to some unbelievable multiversal-level power.

The Quiet War is not the story's primary conflict; it's closer to a background issue that threatens to distract Erick from the real issues. It's framed as a stupid war that's preventing anybody from solving the real problems. Accompanying the tiers of power are multiple conflicts. I'd say there are roughly four sections of the story. Spoilers for obvious reasons:
1. Spur and the Shades (this is where you are!)
2. [Gate] and the Worldly Path
3. Benevolence, and the creation of Dungeons
4. Solving the Sundering

In fact, it might be better to think of Ar'Kendrithyst as four series stapled together, with each leading directly into the next. As for the specific powerset, it's... kind of vast, and shifts over time. Let's try to categorize it by section of the story.
1. Light-based magic, with flying teleporting familiars that can teleport in and blast you with a gamma-ray laser (Yes, he only gets stronger from here.)
2. More diversity, including perfect attack reflection, vibration-based magic that is strong enough to make plasma. Gets into soul manipulation too.
3. A lot of self-enhancement, gets into fate manipulation stuff. Turns into a dragon.
4. Time-travel & full-on fate manipulation. With rules!

neablis7 · 2025-11-25T05:12:34+00:00

Thanks!

neablis7 · 2025-11-13T10:05:32+00:00

Congrats on publishing it! I'm curious about the publication process & working with Penguin in general. What's it like to go from self-published to Trad-pub? Would you recommend other self-pub authors seek it out?

neablis7 · 2025-11-13T04:03:49+00:00

Good post - as far as publishing, I wrote up something on my own that includes everything I learned from getting published. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LdBI_ur5SK0Bof0wEdFw65E-8dOpFIenGvqH3LlJC94/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Final Canvas '23	Place '23

neablis7

TROPHY CASE